What more must Pakistan and its terrorists gangs do before this BJP-led government stirs itself to combative action? We have already seen and suffered twelve long years of bloody mayhem in Kashmir, loss of more than 54,000 lives, unending and escalating terrorist attacks--in towns and villages, on buses and railway stations; on hapless innocent Muslims and Hindu pilgrims and on entire minorities of J&K; on police posts, army convoys and military establishments in the state; and, even more spectacularly, on such fortified and proud monuments of the Indian nation as Delhi’s Red Fort-and now the national parliament.

What will it take to make the lumbering Vajpayee dispensation give up its procrastination in the face of the grave provocation from the diabolical ISI-Mullah machine in Musharraf country? When will “the right time” come to deal a decisive blow to the murderous fanatics and mercenaries? Doesn’t the government see that its inaction is causing a heaving ground swell of bewilderment and anger in the country?

When the J&K assembly was bombed, the prime minister speedposted a letter to the US president: See what these bad boys have done, please do something about it. Yeah, very bad, said the Big Guy in Washington, but you should continue to be a good boy and do nothing. So, predictably, we did nothing. For domestic effect, Mr Vajpayee said something about India’s patience not being unlimited. Now parliament is attacked and the prime minister declares that the non-unlimited patience is wearing thin. Yeah, ok, says Uncle Sam, but don’t take any retaliatory action. Having thus spake, Uncle Sam returneth to his “global war” against terrorism in some yet unbombed caves of Afghanistan!

So while the United States goes across continents to bomb the hell out of a poor country in search of one Osama bin Laden, we cannot strike at the Laden-Musharraf bases in PoK, an area which we claim and which legally is part of India! In fact, there would have been no PoK had we done what any other country would have done in the circumstances when Pakistan first invaded Kashmir--thrown them out of the whole state rather than accept the motivated West-dictated ceasefire even as the invaders were fleeing for the lives.

It has been an unbroken caravan of blunders ever since. Space does not permit cataloguing them all but seeing how the original injury has gone on bleeding one cannot cease to regret such blunders as giving up critical areas in Kashmir recaptured in the 1965 war; believing the willy Zulfiquar Ali Bhutto that he would bury the Kashmir hatchet forever and therefore again returning all the captured areas, and much else, even when Pakistan was down on its knees in 1971; being content (undoubtedly under US ‘advice’) with simply retrieving, at the cost of several hundred lives, the areas seized by Pakistan in Kargil, rather than dealing them a punitive blow across the LoC.

It is unfortunate for any country if its leaders lack foresight; infinitely worse if they also lack hindsight. Recall how our present-day leaders while in opposition had lambasted those in power for compromising national honour and national interests in our dealings with Pakistan. Catapulted to power, the same people have made a shambles of our Pakistan policy, abandoned independent thinking and under American encouragement, adopted infinite restraint as a cardinal creed. Newton discovered a law of Physics: Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. This government has evolved its own variation: Every action (against India) has an equal and opposite inaction!

And it has embellished it with high rhetoric of the inane variety. To take the latest, the fidayeen attack on parliament, like all previous suicide attacks, has been described (by both ruling and some Opposition leaders) as “dastardly/cowardly”. Utterly and even insanely perverse, yes, but, pray, what is cowardly about a man prepared to die for his cause? “The worst terrorists attack”? Extremely sad that half a dozen brave men died in thwarting the attack, but the fact is that in terms of casualties there have been far greater tragedies at the hands of terrorists. “Unprecedented in the annals of democracy worldwide”, says the PM. Would it have been a less serious outrage had it been precedented? (And wasn’t the bombing of the Kashmir assembly a preedent in the sense intended?) it was an attack (PM again) on “the largest democracy” in the world. Would it have been less condemnable had we been a smaller country?

What purpose do such utterances serve? Is it a case of unconscious cerebration? Whatever opinion one may have of the intelligence quotient of our political establishment, it is difficult to believe that the pedestrian, cliche-ridden reactions are without purpose. And the only purpose that offers itself is to evoke certain alleged sensibilities in the West generally and in the US in particular by indulging in the “democracy” rhetoric. If this is indeed the purpose then we are being naive in the extreme. When has the West and the US especially really bothered about democracy abroad? To believe that the US will sit up and at last come to our aid because of the “attack on the symbol of democracy” in India is to betray political juvenility.

The United States is going to do nothing of the sort--and it is amazing that we don’t realise this even after the experience of the last three months. Recall the government’s touchingly innocent expectations that President Bush’s avowed resolve to destroy terrorists and their sponsors and harbourers everywhere would mean action in PoK and against Pakistan as well as in Afghanistan. That the so-called global war against terrorism has turned out to be nothing more than a revenge localised in Afghanistan does not seem to have opened our eyes to American duplicity.

Even after the latest terrorist outrage in New Delhi, witness the reaction in official Washington. This time it is not just the perennial advice to exercise restraint. They want us to desist from action across the LoC and, ridiculously enough, share the evidence with Pakistan and hold a joint investigation into the attack! What else should our new-found bosom pal say to make us realise that it is no friend of ours, nor honest about its vow to fight terrorism that affects other countries, least of all Pakistani terrorism against India? In the event, it would be perfectly in order for New Delhi to advise the Bush administration, even now when it has already wreaked havoc on Afghanistan, to share its own evidence agains the WTC terrorist attack with the Taliban and hold talks with Osama bin Laden on how to deal with his Al Qaida!

It would need someone like an Indira Gandhi or a Sardar Patel to do this. No one in present-day New Delhi has the spine to stand up to American chicanery. But a question they cannot escape is: Where do we go from here? Continue to look up to Washington and hope that it may yet come to our rescue Or, at least, permit what we may decide to do on our own? If the answer is yes, then we must be prepared for an endless wait and, meanwhile, face more depredations, more attacks, more killings by Pakistan’s terrorist network. Are we going to accept this?

The longer this government fails to take the necessary action that less representative it will be of the Indian public opinion. As reported in newspapers, the comments and jokes among the people in Delhi’s Connaught Place immediately after the attack on Parliament (“Attack on MPs in public interest”, “Nation’s hopes rest on the sixth grenadier holed up inside”) may raise a laugh but the government and the entire political set-up would do well to discern the seething popular anger behind the ‘black humour’.

Enough is enough, Enough of prevarication, enough of kowtowing to the US, enough of hollow rhetoric, enough of petty politicking. We need to and we must now launch condign and conclusive action against the terrorists and their camps, and punish their masters and mentors. Never mind the so-called world opinion, never mind who says what. We have done what was right by us in the past--in Hyderabad, in Goa, in Pokharan, in East Engal. Some powers fretted and fumed on each occasion but sooner than later accepted it all. We gave them no alternative. This is what sovereignty is all about.

A country unable to defend itself is fated to lose, but a country unwilling to defend itself deserves to suffer. Action against the terrorists and Pakistan will not be easy or without costs, but hasn’t our “restraint” already cost us a great deal?r

General Secretary’s Report

Today we complete the ten years of our struggle for retrieval of our lost homeland. 28th of December, 1991 was a defining moment in the history of community’s resistance against the forces of genocide. It was here, on that day, my community showed determination and vision, when it told to the powers that be that Kashmiri Hindus’ exodus was not a fait accompli. It declared that it would fight back for its political rights and the strategic imperatives which were necessary for retrieving Kashmir as a nationalist bastion and a functioning secular society. Out of this vision was born the historic resolution of Margdarshan ‘91.

This resolution said that the Kashmiri Pandit community will no more submit itself to the operatives of Muslim precedence and it was determined to carve out a union territory on the soil of Kashmir to the north and east of river vitasta for its permanent settlement to put an end to perpetuate genocide. We have assembled here not only to commemorate the tenth anniversary of this historic vision, but also to reaffirm our pledge to work for the aims for which Panun Kashmir was launched.

Struggle of a community, which is in the throes of a genocide, is not a dinner party. The enemy, which has pushed the victimsed community towards genocide cannot be expected to sit idle and allow the situation of genocide to reverse. It employs all the strategies-subterfuge, deception, blackmail and force to break the victimsed community’s will and determination to fight back. The enemy’s strategy is to sabotage the victimised community’s resistance from within and tighten the siege around the exiled community by declaring no-holds barred assault on the economic, religious, social and political interests of the victimize community. The objective is to break the resolve of the victim to a point where it is forced to welcome and endorse the policies of the perpetrator of the genocide. This is what is happening to our community.

The enemy which wants the perpetual genocide against us to continue, is trying to subvert the agenda that meets our aspirations. It has launched an all round assault on the economic, social, religious and political interests of the community. Never before have the community’s educational institutions and shrines been under threat as today. Lastly, the perpetrators of genocide are trying to create a counter-feit leadership. Through such a leadership enemy is trying to rationalise the assault on community’s interest as well as break the community’s struggle against genocide. The tenth anniversary of Margdarshan ‘91 is an occasion for us to introspect on enemy’s strategies and refashion our responses to move the struggle to the next phase.

Panun Kashmir Movement has completed the first phase of the struggle. It has identified the forces which have pushed our community to a state of continuous genocide and laid bare the historical processes which have facilitated this process. It has prepared a generation of the community to listen to the message of Panun Kashmir. Now it is the task of the next generation to implement the vision of Panun Kashmir. An exiled community that glosses over its achievements cannot struggle. Today Kashmiri Pandit is identified by Panun Kashmir and the ‘Pandit question’ is the Panun Kashmir question now.

Margdarshan ‘91 was a continuation of the vision elaborated on 13th and 14th July, 1990. The new leadership of the Pandit community challenged the old guard, which was still unwilling to work out a vision of survival for the community outside the shackles of Muslim communalism. This old leadership had a perspective which reduced the community’s resistance to the ‘migrant agenda’ of the different political groupings. Panun Kashmir soon challenged this dangerous thinking and declared that the community’s struggle would be decided by the community itself. It said the Pandit community will live in Kashmir by virtue of its own right and choice and not at the goodwill of Muslim communalists.

The first step in the community’s struggle was the territorialization of the community. Resolution No:4 that proposed security zone is thus a key link in the evolution of Panun Kashmir demand. The old leadership, which stood isolated continued to engage itself in manoeuvreings to subvert the agenda of Panun Kashmir and break community’s struggle. It gobbled together a coalition of different opportunists, many of whom had been active in working against the interests of the community, to create confusion in the community. In the process, the old leadership, which had never allowed a vision of survival to develop, got exposed.

Panun Kashmir elaborated the concepts defending the historic and secular regional identity of Kashmir. In 1991, the community under the aegis of Panun Kashmir observed the Vyeth Truvah, the birthday of river vitasta, which had been virtually forgotten by the community due to the constant onslaught by the forces of intolerance. The community members took a pledge on the grounds of Rajinder Park to strive for a future which lies in Kashmir and not in the diaspora. Resolve to return to Kashmir became a chief objective of Panun Kashmir. Observation of Vyeth Truvah also sent a message across to the Pan Islamists who continued their efforts to subvert the secular and historic identity of Kashmir by crafting a putative and sectarian identity.

It took the new leadership one and a half years to concreatise the objectives and the broad aims of Panun Kashmir. Its culmination was the Margdarshan ‘91. For the first time in seven centuries of persecution Pandit community was calling spade by its proper name. It said that Pandit’s expulsion was the consequence of the rejection of Coexistence by the majority Muslim community. Pandits declared that they will not live in Kashmir as ‘amanat’ of the majority community or as symbols of tokenist secularism or nationalism. Islamic fundamentalist ideology, which has gripped the Kashmir valley forecloses all options for survival of pluralistic and healthy society. This was the vision of Panun Kashmir.

Panun Kashmir challenged the human rights discourse, the nationalists, paradigm on retrieval of Kashmir and the existing paradigm on secular revival. Panun Kashmir reached the global community and sensitized it to two realities. One, that it was not Kashmiri Muslim but the ethnically-cleansed community of Kashmiri Hindus that was the real victim of human rights violations and it was a key factor in any solution to Kashmir. Secondly, the international community was told that Kashmir question is not synonymous with aspirations of Kashmiri Sunni Muslim community, which constitutes just 18% of J&K population. J&K is a heterogenous society, where different ethnic groups have antagonistic aspirations and overwhelming majority was opposed to any form of dilution of Indian sovereignty over Kashmir- be it autonomy or so-called independence. For the first time the nation had an alternative vision for permanent nationalist consolidation in Kashmir. Muslim-Left and the liberal lobbies, which are working overtime to undermine the integrity and sovereignly of India but retain their accessibility to the Indian state have been torpedoing all the nationalist initiatives. It is this lobby which is spearheading the campaign to undermine the relevance of Panun Kashmir as solution to Kashmir and the issue of resettlement of displaced Kashmiri Hindus. Those who are working against Panun Kashmir are the same people who are bent upon sabotaging the nationalist initiatives on Kashmir.

Panun Kashmir emerged as a true mass movement. It forged its links with the masses through countless corner meetings and propagated its vision through seminars, rallies media and wall-paintings, and Prabhat pheris. The distinction between cadres and the masses got blurred. Panun Kashmir cadres reached every Pandit home. This gave new confidence to the Panun Kashmir movement. In 1992 Mr Hamidullah Khan, the then advisor to the J&K government revealed his true colours by stopping the payment of relief to the displaced Pandit community, For four months no relief was disbursed to the members of the community whose sole source of income was the paltry relief. PK organised a massive demonstration of more than 15,000 people at Jammu and the government had no option but to put an end to the anti-Pandit policies of Hamidullah Khan.

A resistance movement of an exiled community cannot be forged without remembering the contribution of the martyrs who have laid down their lives for the survival of the community. Panun Kashmir recalled the day when our ancestor Pandit Kripa Ram Dutt approached Guru Teg Bahadur, the greatest of Indian saints who became the martyr for the survival of our community and faith. We recalled this supreme sacrifice by paying obeisance at Sisganj Gurudwara on Martyrs’ Day in 1993. Panun Kashmir organised the Kritagyata Yatra in April 1995 to Anandpur Sahib.

First world Kashmir Pandit Conference brought Panun Kashmir into the national focus. As many as thirteen leading national dailies wrote lead editorials on the movement. This amply demonstrated that Panun Kashmir as a solution to Kashmir cannot be brushed aside. The conference made a strong plea that unless Pakistan was declared a terrorist state, there can be no meaningful battle against forces of subversion. It has taken Indian state and its political leadership nearly eight years to take preliminary steps now for this.

In 1994, two landmark developments took place. Panun Kashmir sent its own delegation headed by our chairman Dr Ajay Chrangoo to Geneva to tell the world the other side of the coin. Till date it remains the only delegation of Pandits that did not dilute the enormity of human rights violations of Pandits by counterposing the question of killings of the members of the majority community due to varying reasons. This was not obviously liked by those powers that visualised the incorporation of Muslim sectarian subnationalism as a permanent factor in the political landscape of Kashmir.

The second historic development was the launching of Kashmir Sentinel, as the powerful mouthpiece of Kashmiri Pandit community. This fortnightly worked as the Sentinel of the nationalist interests on Kashmir and as the authentic voice of Kashmiri Pandit community. This paper is now in its ninth year of publication and prides in having one of the most enlightened readerships. No paper can survive without funds. It is the strong determination displayed by our community in seeing that the paper survives. However, due to constant financial problems, we have to compromise with the frequency and the space of the paper.

On 28th Dec. 1994, Panun Kashmir dedicated Margdarshan Day to our great saintness, Bhakht Lalleshwari, the great apostle of popular Kashmir Shaivism. Refocusing on her true legacy cleared much of the mist on the Sufi-Rishi interface of medieval times. Panun Kashmir organised seminars in Kanpur, Hyderabad, Udaipur, Chandigarh, Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai, Jaipur etc. to sensitise the nation to the new challenges in Kashmir.

Panun Kashmir organised a human chain of 1500 children, in the age group of 6-16 years, culminating outside the UN observer’s office in Jammu. On the same day its representative in Geneva was speaking to the international human community about the gross human right violations of Kashmiri Hindus.

In 1996, Panun Kashmir refused to accept a role that would depict displaced Pandits as pawns in the political chessboard of Kashmir. Bhuvnesh Chaturvedi the blue eyed man of Narsimha Rao then had said in Geneva ‘Agar Pandit Election Mein Hissa Nahi Lenge To Inko Koi Gaas Nahi Chodega’. Panun Kashmir presented a comprehensive critique of the elections and asked the community to boycott elections till conditions were created for its participation for free elections. It gave precedence to right to live and rehabilitations over tokenist participation in elections. Panun Kashmir demanded a blue print for its rehabilitation, a proper census of the community and guarantees for participatory democracy. This was asking too much for the pro-Muslim lobbies in Indian state. The decision to boycott was endorsed by the entire community, when the leading lights of the community along with the representatives of the camps met at Indian International Centre and served an ultimatum on the government. Anti Pandit sections in the establishment worked overtime to plant disinformation campaigns against Panun Kashmir and its leaders.

Our pleas for survival before legitimising elections, did not go unheard. Despite all the obstacles being put by the state machinery, our delegation managed to meet Mr T.N. Seshan, CEC. He understood our pain but felt helpless. He told us ‘Jav Mandir Me Praathna Karo’ our organisation brought out a pamphlet “Why Boycott”. It was widely distributed among MP’s, Journalists and Opinion Makers. It was the will of the tormented community.

Some of the people who were not prepared to fight out the machinations of the community deserted the organisations. This did create some hiccups but people identify with ideas and not the persons. With the strength of the people, reinvigorated Panun Kashmir challenged the semi-secessionist communal agendas on Autonomy, Resettlement bill etc and the sensitized national opinion thwarted these conspiracies.

Our campaigns against American conspiracies on Kashmir be it the different balkanising plans or the ceasefire deceptions or track-two games have borne fruit. There are signs of national leadership waking upto the assaults on national sovereignty.

No struggle can succeed with out a broad but purposeful unity. The community has enough experience that tokenist or protocol unity only builds intertia. Real unity is the unity of minds and not the heads. With this objective Panun Kashmiri worked as a catalyst in forging the unity of Ladakhi, Kashmiri Hindus and people of Jammu by launching PIPU, Peoples’ Initiative on People’s of Unity. PIPU has successfully contested the subversive politics of autonomy and is creating a basis for secular-nationalist consolidation in J&K. PIPU organised a seminar in Bangalore in February 2001. It was a clear message that the deprivations of different groups in J&K cannot be removed in isolation from the broad struggle against the forces of nationalist disruption. PIPU organised two bandhs in Jammu to focus attention of people of Jammu to the acts of terrorist war and the game-plan of ethnic-cleansing against minorities of J&K.

Panun Kashmir delegation met Mr KC Pant in Srinagar this year and in the first ever press conference in Valley after the exodus articulated that no exodus can be a fait accompli. Pandits will fight back. Attempts to snatch away Kashmir’s historic and secular identity will not succeed come what may.

The next phase of our struggle is to be launched outside J&K by mobilising the Indian Nation to put pressure on Indian state for nationalist intervention in Kashmir.

Scholarship in Jammu and Kashmir under the Dogra Rule-Interface with Western Indologists

By S.N. Pandita

The account of my story is about scholars, Kashmiri and Western both, about their achievements and also the patronage, successive Dogra Kings of Jammu and Kashmir lent to them and thus enabled them to write a glorious record of Indological studies in Kashmir during the 19th and 20th century. Perhaps there are few equivalent parallels in the contemporary history of India about the patronage successive rulers of a Royal dynasty accorded to scholarship and spread of learning and education as the Dogra dynasty did to promote Kashmiri and Western scholarship. Indeed for this patronage they have marked their niche in the history of India. Yet, but surprisingly so literary historians have been silent so far on this record of history of Jammu and Kashmir during Dogra rule. In fact I may say that history of Dogra patronage to interface between Kashmiri and Western scholars is completely an unmapped area of Kashmir studies and I have no hesitation to say that it is a story of obscurity of history.

You may agree with me that all areas, be it the Kashmir language, ancient Kashmir history, the works of Kashmir literature or folk traditions, everything was alien to western scholars and yet when we assess and comprehend the results of their works it can safely be assumed that it would have been simply impossible for them to achieve these without the help and assistance of local Kashmiri scholars, while both were supported and patronised to pursue their tracks by the Dogra rulers. It is against this background I shall try to show a close relationship of joint scholarship and try to establish that Kashmir scholars stand as equals to their western counterparts in this glory.

For the health of its own soul West wanted to know everything and exploit that lay within the range of their intellect. The curiosity and spirit of enquiry, this intellectual urge of West was contagious and it was transmitted as a matter of fact to the Kashmiri Pandits also. For the latter also, it became a great mental tonic and spiritual force to awaken and rejuvenate their intellectual sense.

As an old people, worried and wearied by domestic trails and tribulations and consideration of matters both mundane and intellectual, Pandits of Kashmir had suffered the inability to potray the gifts of scholarship to the world.

For a long time Pandits had nothing but some shreds of past memories, some dim recollection of what they were and what they had achieved through their seminal minds. Before all that could have been lost by the advent of so-called modernism the traditional literary wealth of Kashmir was given a fine treatment by Western scholars in association with local Kashmiri scholars under the ample and liberal patronage of the Dogra Maharajas and thus one of the richest oriental literature was prevented from getting lost and instead opened to the world one of the richest stores of knowledge and wisdom. This interface also bridged Kashmiris to the glory of past achievements and deserving claims. It also brings out the role of Dogra regime in shaping the literary and scholarly traditions of Jammu and Kashmir for the gain and benefit of mankind as a whole.

The patrons are Maharaja Ranbir Singh, Maharaja Pratap Singh, Raja Amar Singh and Maharaja Hari Singh. The known icons of the Western scholarship are Professor George Buhler, Sir Aurel Stein, Sir George Grierson, Dr David Brainered Spooner, Professor Sten Konow, Dr H Hultzsch, Professor J.Ph. Vogel, Professor Maurice Winternitz, Dr Carl Kellor, Dr K.de. Vreese, Sir John Marhall and Professor Franklin Edgerton. The barey known Kashmiri scholars are Pandit Govind Koul, Pandit Damodar, Pandit Sahib Ram, Pandit Sahaz Bhat, Professor Nityanand Shastri, Pandit Mukund Ram Shastri, Pandit Anand Koul, Pandit Ishwar Koul and Professor Jagdhar Zadoo.

Soon after his accession to the throne in the year 1857 Maharaja Ranbir Singh consecrated a shrine to the worship of Rama from whom according to Dogra tradition the house of Jammu Rajas claim descent. Maharaja provided rich endowments for founding and maintenance of such religious institutions as the Dharmashastras recommended to be established in connection with the temple buildings, Among these institutions a pathshala or college, a library of Sanskrit works were the foremost objects of the Maharaja’s care and stand forth as solid monument of two main qualities in his remarkable character, pious regard for the inherited religious traditions and enlightend interests in Indian learning. The Maharaja’s desire was to revive the study of Vedic texts which in his dominion as well as in the Punjab had practically ceased for centuries. Collections of manusdcripts began in the very first year of Maharaja’s reign, competent teachers were drawn to the Raghunath Temple and the library and whose names worth to be recorded were Pandit Goukulachandra, the learned head of the temple schools, Pandit Duga Prasad of Jaipur, Rassa Mohan Bhattacharya from Bengal, Pandit Dilaram and Pandit Bhaskara Jyotirvid of Maharaja Ranbir Singh. As Maharaja Ranbir Singh resolved upon the expansion of the Raghunath temple library, collection of Sanskrit works and manuscripts from different parts of India started. Maharaja ordered this to the care of Pandit Asananda who would spend sanction amount of Rs 15000 annually in procuring manuscripts.

Liberal patronage exercised by the Maharaja attracted an increasing number of Pandits to Jammu, where many found employment either at the court or in connection with various scholastic and religious establishments. New opportunities arose for enlarging the collection of library. The rich stores of Sanskrit literature preserved by the Pandits of Kashmir had at an early date attracted the Maharaja’s attention. Extensive operations were begun about 1861 under his orders by Pandit Raja Kaka son of Pandit Birabalabhadra the representative of distinguished Pandit family of Srinagar for the prupose of obtaining copies of all Kashmiri Sanskrit works not found in India. He was assisted by well known Kashmiri scholars such as Pandit Balabhadara Kaka, Pandit Sahib Ram, and Pandit Krishan Bhat. Pandit Raja Kaka had obtained large collection of works to the library from Kashmir when he died in 1864. The task was further taken up by Pandit Jagadhara of Jammu with the help of Pandit Daya Ram Jyotirvid and Pandit Sukh Ram of Srinagar.

A large number of works were produced under the patronage of Maharaja Ranbir Singh with the object of spreading a knowledge of classical Hindu learning among the Maharaja’s Dogras subjects. Not less than 38 different works were prepared by Kashmiri scholars under his auspices and prove sufficiently the wide extent of the Maharaja’s literary patronage. These Pandits included Pandit Sahib Ram, Pandit Vasudeva, Pandit Ganesha, Pandit Ramachandara and Pandit Daya Ram Shastri of Srinagar. Pandit Sahib Ram was undoubtedly the foremost among Kashmiri scholars of this list and was commissioned by Maharaja Ranbir Singh to prepare descriptive survey of all ancient Trithas of Kashmir and to restore the corrupted text of Nilamata Purana with a staff of Pandits placed at his disposal.

With the progress of Raghunath library temple collection, first European interests were drawn towards this treasure. Rudolf von Roth Professor of antiquities at the University of Vienna came to know of a unique Vedic manuscript, an unknown version of the Atharva Veda to exist in Kashmir. Through scholarly and quasi-official channels he persuaded the British authorities in India to try and locate it in Kashmir. After many years it was obtained by Maharaja Ranbir Singh in 1875 who sent the birch bark original manuscript to Sir William Muir. The Governor was non pulsed when the object of negotiation was handed to him, a messay bundle of grimy tattered 287 pieces of birch bark leaves held by a chord passing through the centre. An urgent telegram was sent to George Buhler, then professor of oriental languages in Bombay to come to the viceregal mansion. One look at the manuscript, convinced Buhler that it needed a washing. Reassuring Sir William that the ink used would not be affected. He laundered the same in his bathroom. The manuscript was restored and the act earned Buhler the admiration of Governor. Maharaja Ranbir Singh had obtained this unique manuscript from Pandit Daya Ram Jyotshi through the persuasion of Keshav Bhat Zadoo. George Buhler further worked in Kashmir during 1875 and collected more than 300 manuscripts many of them in Sharada script written on birch bark leaves with the assistance and help of Pandit Damodar under the kind order of Maharaja. Buhler was also assisted by Pandit Radha Krishen in this task. Radhakrishen was the first native Kashmiri to recommend to Government of India the need to catalogue manuscript collection with private individuals. He identified 23 natives with private libraries in the heart of Srinagar itself.

Of Damodar’s erudition Buhler remarked that he was a learned scholar who seemed to shake Sanskrit verse and prose out of his sleeves. He wished “I had such teachers in oriental college”. George Buhler looked out to search the most original manuscript of Rajatarangini which he called Codex-archetypus which was then retained by the learned Kashmiri Pandit Siva Ram whose family alone in Kashmir had always preserved a copy of Royal chronicle. Buhler endeavoured to obtain it. He was permitted only a glimpse before the owner took the manuscript away. There his good future deserted him. He left Kashmir in December 1875 for Vienna. At Vienna his student Aurel Stein heard this story from Buhler himself.

With the arrival of first English missionary, Doxey in 1881, Maharaja Ranbir Singh readily agreed to his suggestion to establish a school in Srinagar on the lines of modern education. Doxey was followed by Hinton Knowles as the Principal. He with the help of Pandit Anand Koul collected more than 1600 native sayings and proverbs, a rare work for its rich content of folk wealth of local Kashmiri language. For this help Anand Koul was elevated to be the first Head Master of the Mission School. Together Knowles and Anand Koul wrote folk tales of Kashmir also. Being well versed in English language Anand Koul was appointed as Sherrif by Raja Amar Singh, the President of Council of Regency set under the express orders of Maharaja Pratap Singh in 1891.

Stein followed his teacher Buhler’s example and arrived in Kashmir on August 12, 1888, thirteen years after the departure of his teacher. Equipped with the recommendations of the Vice-Chancellor of Punjab University, Dr Rattigan, Stein was received by the European educated Governor of Maharaja Pratap Singh who had ascended to throne after the death of his father Maharaja Ranbir Singh in 1885. Within two days the Governor arranged Stein’s meeting with the Pandits in his house. Raja Amar Singh, the Maharaja’s brother honoured it with his presence and was introduced to Stein. Stein conversed with the Raja in Sanskrit. He met many Pandits which included Pandit Damodar, recommended to him by Buhler besides Pandit Govind Koul, Pandit Mukund Ram Pandit Ishwar Koul and Pandit Sahaz Bhat. Stein was doing what he wanted to do in the place he had wanted to be and he was immensely successful under the patronage of Maharaja Pratap Singh.

Only one flaw marred the excitement of his first visit to Kashmir. He could not lay his hands upon the Codex-archetypus of Rajataragini. It was a year later in 1889 under the directions of Maharaja, Dr Suraj Koul could obtain the complete manuscript of Rajatarangini for Stein’s use. This Darbar arranged for the assistance of Kashmiri scholars, Govind Koul and Mukund Ram to assist Aurel Stein in the edition and translation of Rajatarangini which took, in Stein’s own words “eleven years of committed friendship and exacting scholarship of my Kashmiri colleagues”. Their commitment to scholarship brought with it lasting friendship too.

In Stein’s second holiday trip to Jammu with ready support of the Resident, Parry Nisbet he was received cordially by the Maharaja’s brother, Raja Amar Singh, put in the palatial dak bungalow as guest of Court with elephants as part of Royal transportation. The manuscript library of Raghunath temple comprising of about 8000 manuscripts was opened for Stein’s access by the order of Maharaja on 19th October, 1889. Following day Aurel Stein had an audience with the Maharaja who received him in the Darbar. He sat on the right side of Maharaja with Raja Amar Singh on Maharaja’s left while the entire Court sat on carpet before them. Twelve most learned Pandits summoned by Maharaja’s expressed wish which included Pandit Ishwar Koul, Pandit Damodar, Pandit Mahatab, Pandit Govind Koul, Pandit Sehaz Bhat all from Srinagar and Pandit Ganga Ram and Pandit Govindacharya of Jammu, conversed with Stein in Sanskrit. The Maharaja desired Stein to recite verses from Vedas. This Stein did. It convinced the Maharaja of his ability and intent both. In one hour the audience was over. On Stein’s departure the Royal guard fired a salute, which “an undeserved honour” according to Stein, made his elephants restless.

On Stein’s recommendation the catalogue work was entrusted to Pandit Govind Ram and Pandit Sahaz Bhat who were provided with the services of six copyists also. The inclusion of Sharada manuscripts of Kashmir which were less readable to scholars from India were transcribed into Devnagari, yet at the instructions of Maharaja 12 well preserved birch bark codies were added to library and of whose specimen of calligraphy Stein opined as excellent pieces that truly fit a Royal library. Other Kashmir scholars who were involved in catalogue work included Pandit Damodar and Pandit Ishwar Koul.

Alongside, Aurel Stein studied ancient geography of Kashmir during the summer seasons of 1888, 1889, 1891, 1892 and 1894 and in shorter visits during 1895 and 1896 with the help of Pandit Govind Koul and Pandit Chand Ram. All these great indological works, the edition of Rajatarangini, the motif of which had three movements in Aurel Stein’s hand namely the Sanskrit edition in 1892, English translation and commentary in 1900 intervened with publication of Ancient Geography of Kashmir in 1896 was the outcome of Maharaja Pratap Singh patronising these works.

Paying fulsome tribute to Govind Koul and Pandit Mukund Ram for their help Stein recorded, “I am indebted to both scholars for much information and explanation on Kashmirian topics without which correct comprehension of Kalhan’s text was unattainable”. For Pandit Damodar, Stein said, “he was the facile prince among the scholars of Kashmir and had set himself the task to continue Rajatarangini from the time of Akbar to his own and from what I have seen of the parts composed Kalhan could have found generations past no worthier successor”. Regrettably Pandit Damodar died in 1892 itself. The Sanskrit edition of Rajatarangini was dedicated by Stein to Maharaja Pratap Singh as a mark of his deep gratitude and respect. The English edition was dedicated to the memory of George Buhler. Stein thanked Raja Amar Singh the Prime Minister of State too for his generous grants to carry archaeological survey in Kashmir patronised by him for preservation of monuments, ancient culture and literature of Kashmir.

For the catalogue work Aurel Stein recorded his gratitude. “To his Highness Maharaja Pratap Singh who in a spirit of true enlightenment for marks of personal kindness he has favoured me with and who himself having received thorough education in several Sastras and who faithfully cherishes the literary patronage of Maharaja Ranbir Singh, has been pleased to give me personally through communications, most of the history of temple library and the scholars connected with its formation. It is a source of special gratification to me to record this as valuable proof of his interest in my work. The Prime Minister Raja Amar Singh never failed to evince his interest in all matters of my research. I am indebted to him for the arrangements of Pandits and the scholars whose assistance and help enabled me to undertake the publication of the catalogue”. Commenting on the help of Pandit Govind Koul and Pandit Sehaz Bhat, Stein observed, “their notes slips, and brief commentary on each manuscript have on many occasions most usefully supplemented my printed sources of references”. The catalogue was published in 1984 which according to Stein, “was a great store of Sanskrit literature in India.”

It is of interest of know that Maharaja Pratap Singh accorded an equivalent deifying status to this rich library collection by getting it deposited in a room adjoining the central Cella of the temple dedicated to Raghunath. Later as the collection increased it was shifted to a gallery forming part of quadrangle which enclosed the temple court but it did not offer sufficient safety from fire and other dangers. Maharaja ordered for the collection to be kept in the central shrine itself. This act bears testimony to Maharaja’s laudable foresight and his admiration for achievement of scholars.

While Stein was in Lahore, Lockwood Kiplince father of famous Rudyard Kipling then curator at Lahore museum, gave Stein the need of an example and that was his freedom, “to value such Indian scholars as Pandit Govind Koul”.

In 1888 Aurel Stein was invited by Raja Amar Singh to prepare a report on Vangath temple and Pandrethan ruins. The Raja showed his willingness to spend to have them restored. “All in all the Raja was gracious”, wrote Stein. While Aurel Stein was still engaged in his Kashmir labours between 1888 to 1900 he had already become the greatest western patron of Kashmiri Pandits and drew attention of Irish linguist George Grierson to Pandit Ishwar Koul’s Kashmiri grammar the Kashmiri Shabdamrit which the former edited in 1898 and was published by Asiatic Society of Bengal. Of this work Grierson observed, “It appeared as if written by Hemachandra himself. All I did was to correct only the slips and errs of pen”. Towards the end of 1900 Stein shifted the field of his work to central Asian explorations but he was already a pivot in the interface which was to become more racy in the subsequent decade of 20th century between Kashmiri and Western scholars.

In July 1900 Aurel Stein recommended the Dutch indolgist J.Ph.Vogel to Kashmiri scholar Pandit Nityanand Shastri who was then a teacher of Sanskrit in the Maharaja’s Pathshala in Srinagar. Their exacting studies in the field of epigraphy connected with Sharada inscriptions on rock in Chamba valley led to discovery and assessment of the earliest 10th century record of Kashmiri script. The work is well known world over as Antiquities of Chamba which appeared in 1913. Of Pandit Nityanand’s assistance and help Vogel observed that “he was a scholar who dispelled avidya and who had mastered all the shastras and wose knowledge of sciences had reached the other end of ocean”. He acknowledged that how grateful he was to fate that Nityanand was acknowledged his teacher as well as friend teacher as well as friend. He called him Hanumana who could cross the ocean with his Shastrik knowledge. Their long friendship lasted more than four decades. Between 1902 to 1908 J.Ph. Vogel was drafted into Archaeological Survey of India to take control of North-Western Frontier Provinces and Kashmir monuments under Maharaja Pratap Singh’s express consent.

As Aure Stein had shifted to Central Asia, A.W. Straton took the Registrarship of Punjab University Lahore in 1900 a tenure which he occupied just for two years following his untimely death in Gulmarg in 1902. Straton came in contact with Kashmiri scholars like Pandit Harabhat, Pandit Nityanand and Pandit Mukund Ram. He studied Kavya Drama and texts of various Sastras in Kashmir with their assistance and exchanged lot of correspondence with these Kashmiri scholars which bore the wealth of literary interactions. Subsequently Straton’s widow Anna Booth through the efforts of Vogel collected all the Sanskrit letters that her husband A.W. Straton had written to and received from Kashmiri scholars to make a book. This book was published in London in the year 1908 under the title “Letters from India”. The English translation of Sanskrit letters was done by Maurice Bloomfield, the famous author of Vedic Concordance. It is pertinent to record that Bloomfield was Guru of 20th Century’s greatest linguist Noam Chomsky, who for the future generations will be what Descrates, Mozart, Newton, Galelio and Frued have been to ours. With Bloomfield’s translation of Sanskrit letters making the content of the book, it is however said that the work is practically unknown in India and in particular to Kashmir intelligentsia and more sadly even a copy of it is believed to be not available at present in India.

In the year 1905 Harvard scholar David Brainerd Spooner visited Kashmir and came in contact with Nityanand, Hara Bhat and Mukund Ram. This interaction led to spread of Sanskrit studies at Harvard University in America and this perhaps is the earliest event when Sanskrit leaning began in America. Spooner desired with Nityanand if the Maharaja could appoint him under his dominions in the area of archaeology. It was however much later that Spooner served the Archaeological Survey of India in 1919 and was incharge of Kashmir monuments under the express patronage of Maharaja. Earlier Nityanand wrote a four volume commentary and translation of Taitariya Upnishad which found its place in the Harvard University library in the year 1913.

The year 1906 was important politically in Kashmir. The Viceroy Lord Minto came to Kashmir and visited Srinagar on 6th October. He was welcomed warmly by Maharaja Pratap Singh in Srinagar. It was to generous greatness of the Maharaja that he expressed a desire that ceremonial address to the British Royal dignitary was read in traditional Sanskrit language. It was left to two Kashmiri scholars Nityanand and Mukund Ram to read the welcome address and recite some Sanskrit verses in praise of the visiting dignitary. It was yet one more high point of Maharaja’s patronage to excellence and Kashmiri scholarship. The two Kashmiris did the job with grace and aplomb which earned hem appreciation of both the Maharaja and the Viceroy.

In the year 1908 Pandit Mukund Ram was deputed by the Darbar to assist and help Norweign indologist Professor Sten Konow of the University of Oslo in his epigraphical works in Kashmir. Of Mukund Ram’s erudition Konow recorded in the report he submitted to the Government, “he is an excellent scholar and whose knowledge of history is probably unsurpassed amongst the Pandits of Kashmir.” In the same year under the orders of Maharaja, Mukund Ram was deputed to assist Pope Ved in his task to translate Tibetan texts into Sanskrit. After learning Tibetan language himself Mukund Ram translated 1,50,000 sholakas of Tibetan text Kangur Tangur into Sanskrit an astonishing feat which earned him admiration of the Maharaja and a cashprize of Rs 500. The celebrated archaeologist A.H. Franckie of the Morovian mission also came to Kashmir in 1908 for the study of Tibetan inscriptions in Ladakh and Tibet. Seeking local assistance in this task Maharaja Pratap Singh deputed Pandit Mukund Ram. In their tour to Dras Franckie placed some of the rock inscriptions that William Cunningham had earlier tried to decipher and had thrown them in despair. Mukund Ram read them with ease. In his report later submitted by Franckie to the government he recorded, “what Cunningham had thrown in despair became intelligible in half an hour with Mukund Ram. I recall with satisfaction many hours of work with this excellent scholar”.

As the scholarly interaction between Western and Kashmiri scholars was growing steadily, the Russians also started getting interested to work on indological themes. It was in the year 1911 two Russian scholars, a husband and wife team by the names Victor and Luydmill Meirwarth from the Leningrad University visited India on a four year term to acquire manuscripts, artifacts and other related materials of antiquities from India for creating a museum of Indian antiquities at the Leningrad University. During their sojourns in India they also visited Kashmir in 1912. At Srinagar they came in contact with Kashmiri scholar Pandit Jagdhar Zadoo. Meirwaths who had obtained complete works of south Indian poet Basa Kavi desired to have these translated from Sanskrit into Russian language. This was possible only by translating first these works from Sanskrit into English. The translations were made by Jagdhar Zadoo and found their way to the Leningrad University museum in 1914. Jagdhar Zadoo had also a brief encounter with a Japanese scholar Momo Moto Koso who too visited Srinagar in 1914 and acquired good knowledge of various subjects of Kashmir studies.

The year 1912 began much like any other in Kashmir. Aurel Stein was then in Peshawar. There he met the Viceroy Hardinge. Following this meeting he dashed straight to Srinagar. There as the guest of the Kashmir Resident S.M. Fraser, Stein was lodged in the best rooms in the place. He took advantage of following with the Maharaja in May 1912 the prospect of establishing a Kashmir Art Institute with the support of Dr Mitra the Home Secretary. The proposal was well taken by the Maharaja and Kashmir Art Institute became a reality in the next year in 1913. In July 1912 to utter astonishment of Aurel Stein he received a communication from the viceroy’s hand about the conferment of title of K.C.I.E. (Knight Commander of Indian Empire). His investiture took place on October 15, at Srinagar in the hotel run by Nedous. The splendid occasion served Stein well. The Maharaja was present with his full Court. His old native friends Mukund Ram and Nityanand Shastri were there to greet him. The Viceroy too was also present on the occasion. But alas! for Stein it was too late for Govind Koul who was no longer among the living. Stein had brief interview with the Maharaja and the Viceroy where he supported the cause of according due recognition for Kashmiri scholars with both the Royal highups. At the ceremony Stein spoke of his best Indian friend Govind Koul by stating, “the first sure steps on the ladder that led me to this fame and success had been made with the friendship and help of Pandit Govind Koul”. This was the scholar friend with whom Aurel Stein had discussed every line and word of Rajatarangini on which they had worked together for more than a decade earlier. Emotionally it was hard for Stein to have written finis to a work whose every point he had analysed with Pandit Govind Koul.

Earlier also Stein had mourned the death of his friend. Then in Calcutta on July 13, 1899, he wrote, “This news has moved me very deeply and will remain a sorrow for a long time.” And a week later he had still lamented Govind Koul’s death, “The loss of Pandit Govind Koul lies heavily on my heart. He died too early and I deeply feel the gap he has left in my Indian life.”

After the investiture ceremony, Aurel Stein pleaded with the Maharaja to make recommendations to the Viceroy for allowing appropriate recognition of Mukund Ram’s assistance to him. Stein saw that all his labours in Kashmir expounded on Rajatarangini, the catalogue of Ranbir library and studying ancient geography of Kashmir with the help of Kashmiri scholars had become the vehicle that had brought him to the threshold of his self chartered career as a pioneer in Central Asian research. Aurel Stein was a Sanskritist first, archaeologist and explorer later. It was his knowledge of Sanskrit that he used as a tool to dig out the past history of Central Asia. For this boon he owed his gratitude to Kashmir and its scholars.

Two months later on 11th December, 1912 Lord Hardinge the Viceroy conferred the title of Mahamahoupadhyaya on Mukund Ram Shastri. He became the first Kashmiri to have Doctor of Literature in Sanskrit. Four days later the Kashmir Resident, Fraser issued the notification of confermment of title on Mukund Ram as a personal distinction, the Viceroy Hardinge of Penhurst, had granted him. If knighthood gave Stein the privilege to sit by the side of Viceroy, the title of Mahamahoupadhyaya gave Mukund Ram the honour to sit next to the Raja in the Darbar. Recognizing his meritorious achievement Maharaja Pratap Singh appointed Mukund Ram to the post of Head of Research Department in Kashmir in 1913, a position he held until his death in 1921. Of this Kashmiri scholar Sir John Marshall had observed in 1915, “There was no Pandit like of him in India.”

While Stein was still engaged with his labours on Rajatarangini the Irish linguist George Grierson had begun his monumental work on linguistic survey of India which included also the Kashmiri language and compilation of Dictionary of Kashmiri Language in 1898. In this monumental task Grierson was chiefly assisted by Pandit Mukund Ram, Govind Koul and Pandit Nityanand Shastri. As Govind Koul died at a very young age of 50 years in 1899, it was left to the scholarly assistance of Pandit Mukund Ram to work on these land marks of Kashmir studies. He carried the work for next twenty years which was snapped only by his death in 1921. As the work on Dictionary of Kashmiri language was still incomplete Grierson was now assisted by Pandit Nityanand Shastri till its completion in 1932.

The completion of Dictionary of Kashmiri language was a task that took 34 years of dedicated scholarship of Grierson and his Kashmiri associates. On its completion George Grierson recorded, “I owe a heavy debt of gratitude to Professor Nityanand Shastri of Sri Pratap College Srinagar for much help in explaining difficult points in Kashmiri idiom and meaning that baffled my unaided knowledge. After the death of my assistant Mahamahoupadhyaya Mukund Ram Shastri this gentleman placed all the resources of his great learning at my disposal. He even wrote for me a commentary on an ancient Kashmiri work Mahanaya Prakasa which I found most valuable in elucidating the history of language. By the regretted death of Mukund Ram Shastri I lost a valuable coadjutor possessed of unique knowledge of his native language in all its forms ancient and modern and it is with genuine sorrow that I recognise that he did not live to see the completed sheets of work on which he spent such fruitful labour”.

Grierson further noted, “as my knowledge of Kashmir language was small the real authors of this Dictionary are these Pandits”. Commenting on the importance and use of Ishwar Koul’s Kashmir Shadbamrita in the making of Kashmiri Dictionary Grierson further observed, “whenever I was in doubt, Ishwar Koul was my last authority”.

Following the completion of Kashmiri Dictionary Aurel Stein was greatly happy to commend Pandit Nityanand’s help in this work and had taken the first opportunity to write to him about the successful culmination. While Sival arinaya was through the press it was Grierson’s delight to write to Nityanand and inform him about the completion of task. Mukund Ram wrote a complete commentary on Kashmiri text Siva Parinaya of the great Lila poet Krishana Joo Razdan which Grierson later edited and published in six volumes between 1914 and 1924.

In 1914 Mukund Ram also collated the first complete and most authentic manuscript of the sayings of 14th century Kashmiri poetess Lalded from the tradition of oral utterances then prevalent in Kashmir. In this great oriental work Pandit Nityanand in 1917 helped Grierson to unlock and understand the riddle of meters used in these poetical sans. It was this record of Lala’s sayings which Grierson and Lionel Barnett edited and published as Lalal Vakiyani in London in 1920.

While Aurel Stein was still engaged on his Rajatarangini labours in 1896 he used the opportunity to record the Kashmiri folk tales verbatim in Roman script from the mouth of a peasant bard Hatim which were simultaneously recorded in Devnagri script by his coworker Pandit Govind Koul. The tales according to Stein had, “many humorous idoms unfamiliar to Indian spirit”. Appreciating their richness, Stein had recorded them with the purpose of translating them into German. Stein further recorded, “I might well have hesitated about attempting the record of these materials at all, if I had not been assured from the start of Pandit Govind Koul’s most competent and painstaking collaboration. The manuscript record of these tales was handed over to George Grierson by Stein in 1912 which the former edited and published from London in 1917 as Hatim’s Tales.

Aurel Stein took the last public occasion to remember his old Kashmiri friend Govind Koul by writing a record of his life and his achievements, “A Memorium to Govind Koul”. This was published from Oxford in 1923, in which Stein recorded, “whenever Pandit Govind Koul was by my side whether in dusty heat of Lahore or in the Alpine coolness of Kashmir, I always felt as a historical student in continuity with the past history of India and only regret that a union with him is beyond possibility in this Janama. Kalhan himself the author of Rajatarangini with whose personality I felt, I was becoming so familiar across the gap of long centuries seemed aptly to illustrate this typical combination of features. In Pandit Govind Koul I found them all again and united with a high sense of honour, a bearing of true innate nobility and a capacity for faithful attachment which from the first made me cherish him greatly as a friend and an accomplished mentor”. Stein took this opportunity to record the epitaph for Ishwar Koul too whom he described as, “Kashmirian epiphany of panini”.

In the year 1916 Maharaja Pratap Singh appointed Pandit Nityanand Shastri as the first Professor of Sanskrit in the college at Srinagar that bore his name. It was yet one more proof of continued patronage of the Dogra rule to Kashmiri scholarship besides recognition of Nityanand’s contribution to Sanskrit learning and his achievements as a scholar. Five years later in 1921 Grierson solicited Nityanand’s help to translate the first written Kashmiri work Mahanaya Prakasa of Siti Kantha into Sanskrit. Grierson was aware about the importance and need of getting the 14th century Kashmiri work translated in to Sanskrit. He showed keeness about this task as he wrote to Autrel Stein, “I want Nityanand to do same to Mahanaya Prakasa, what Pandit Govind Koul did to Hatim’s tales. It is an important work to assess for the elucidation of history of Kashmiri language.” The translation later found its way to Grierson’s receipt in Glengeary, England in 1922.

In July 1923 German scholar Maurice Winternitz, who had earlier served as an amanuensis for 18 years to legendary Max Mueller at Oxford visited Kashmir. Winternitz had come to India in connexion with his monumental work about history of Indian literature and it was also his intention to edit great Indian epic Mahabharata and thus came to Kashmir to know and learn about the tradition of Mahabharata manuscripts in Kashmir. Winternitz sought Aurel Stein’s help in this regard. Stein referred Winternitz to Nityanand for the successful achievements in this task. His encounter with Nityanand resulted in Kashmir Mahabharata text edited in 1923 by him, finding place of honour on the shelves of library of University of Prague in Czechoslovakia. Nityanand also assisted Winternitz with history of Naga traditions in Kashmir, the duly acknowledged account of which finds mention in the History of Indian Literature edited by Maurice Winternitz which was published by Calcutta University in 1927.

While Winternitz took assistance of Nityanand for the edition of Mahabharata, Dutch scholar J.Vogel too was attracted to the tradition of Naga worship in India and Kashmir bearing strong references to Naga worship from the legendary accounts available in Nilamata Purana, sought help of Nityanand in compiling these references in his work. The assistance given by Nityanand to Vogel stand as yet one more landmark of his erudition. The monumental work was published from London in 1926 under the “The Serpent Lore-Naga Worship in Legend and Art”. It bears the record of Nityanand’s contribution in completion of this great work. According to Vogel the persons to whom he was indebted for the successful completion of the task included Sir John Marshall, Sir George Grierson, Professor Julius Bloch, Sir Aurel Stein and Professor Nityanand of Kashmir amongst many other distinguished scholars. The Kashmiri scholar stood shoulder high alongside the Icons of Indology.

American Sanskritist Professor Franklin Edgerton from Ya le University came to Kashmir in May 1927 for a year’s study on Kashmir Saivism. He too sought assistance of Sir Aurel Stein, who according to Vogel knew better than anyone else the learned class of Kashmir, as to from whom he should seek the assistance in his endeavors in Kashmir. Yet again Stein was quick to recommend Nityanand to him. Following their joint pursuits Edgerton recorded “but for his vast knowledge of Kashmir Saivism I would have been less knowledgeable on this subject and only regret my short stay in Kashmir”.

During the decade between 1920 to 1930 Grierson studied Kashmiri texts, Krishna Avtar Lila, Lav Kush Charita and Kashmiri Ramayan. He was confronted with many difficulties in understanding these works. In all these he took assistance of Nityanand Shastri following which these texts appeared in press in 1928 and 1930 published by Asiatic Society of Bengal. Of this collaboration Grierson recorded, “I thank Professor Nityanand Shastri for much help from time to time in editing these texts and to whom I owe much learning of these subjects”. The year 1928 was a landmark year for George Grierson. It brought him the highest British Honour, a title of Order of Merit as recognition of his extraordinary scholarly attainments. As Grierson received a stream of congratulatory messages, one came from Kashmir from Professor Nityanand. Replying this communication Grierson took the opportunity to pay a tribute to Kashmiri scholarship. In a letter to Nityanand dated December 18, 1928, Grierson wrote, “I am indeed happy to have the title conferred on me but my happiness is increased by the knowledge that competent scholars like you who can judge, consider that it has been deserved”.

In line to the glorious tradition of Dogra rulers, Maharaja Hari Singh too bestowed his best attention to the cause of scholarship in Kashmir. In the year 1929 the first Maha Hindu Samelan was hosted at Rawalpindi. The Maharaja too was invited to this august gathering. Unable to attend on account of urgent affairs of State that needed his attention Maharaja Hari Singh nominated Processor Gyani Ram and Professor Nityanand Shastri to represent him at the Samelan. It was an act of great patronage that Maharaja Hari Singh lent to scholarship: At the Samelan Nityanand met Dr Madan Mohan Malviya the great scholar and the then vice-chancellor of Benaras Hindu University who in that short meeting expressed his desire to have scholars like Nityanand in his University by saying, “the

Among the last scholarly feats achieved by Nityanand was a Kashmiri and Sanskrit translation of the 14th century Spanish classic Don Quixote which Stein had sought from him in 1935 at the request of his Harvard friend Professor Carl Kellor who then was also President of Harvard Board of Studies. Kellor had translated versions of this Spanish classic in most of the important world languages except Kashmiri and Sanskrit. Down with paralysis still that had struck him in 1934, Nityanand Shastri collaborated on this task with another Kashmiri scholar who earlier had replaced Dr Sideshwar Verma at Prince of Wales College Jammu in 1921 under the orders of Maharaja Pratap Singh while Dr Sideshwar had gone to Oxford for his D.Lit.

Stein informed Grierson about this arrangement. Later in a letter to Nityanand from England Grierson wrote, “I met Sir Aurel Stein and we talked all about our Kashmiri friends. I learned from him that you have begun work of translating Don Quixote. Soon it may be ready for press. I am sure it is bound to be good”. The task was completed by both Jagdhar and Nityanand as per the arrangements made by Sri Stein. The Kashmiri and Sanskrit translations of Don Quixote arrived in Boston Harvard in July 1936. Of this feat Stein wrote to Nityanand, “they are now deposited on the shelves of Harvard University library-the greatest library in the world and thus perpetuate your name and fame.”

Like Rajatarangini the Nilmata Purana under Vreese’s hand had more than one motif. In 1938 Vreese using the good support of Aurel Stein began to work on annotated edition of the Nilmata Purana. He was confronted by many problems in interpreting the text of Nilmata Purana. He again sought Steins’s help, who traced his steps yet again to Nityanand. In a letter to Nityanand dated July 14th, 1938 Stein wrote, “I am enclosing as annexed herewith the request of Dr K.de.Vreese who you know wants the explanations of many points as regards his annotated edition of Nilmata Purana. And you will agree with me as to how difficult it is for even a competent European scholar to get to the meaning of such difficult text. I request you to answer Dr. Vreese’s enquiries in the same manner as you used to answer the queries of Sri George Grierson and earn a Punya for yourself.”

While Stein was losing no opportunity that spanned almost five decades, to make constant contributions to the interface between Kashmiri and Western scholars, his own fascination to Kashmir and particularly to his labours devoted to Rajatarangini and other works never ceased in him. In 1940 while planning for his Afghanistan explorations even though having attained an advanced age of 78 years Stein made a round about trip to Srinagar and then to Jammu. From Jammu December 18, 1940 Stein wrote to Mrs Fred Andrews wife of his life long friend, “I visited again after 50 years the Raghunath temple library. Its 6000 old Sanskrit manuscripts had been catalogued by me with help of Pandit Govind Koul and another excellent Kashmir scholar Sahaz Bhat in what now seems like a previous birth. It had been a dreary task but it saved the collection from being lost. I had a very attentive reception, had to talk Sanskrit again for an hour or so thus purified my tongue by use of the sacred language after all my peregrinations in the barbarian North and West. It was a quaint experience to find myself in the end garlanded in the traditional Hindu fashion for the first time in my life.”

In his usual fashion Stein took the occasion to advance his proposed new edition of Rajatarangini with Maharaja Hari Singh. Stein was a guest of the Maharaja who according to him was, “a remarkable figure of the old chivalrous type”. The Jammu Prime Minister assured him that he would argue with the State to help support for the new edition of Rajatarangini. Following Stein’s departure from Jammu the Wali of Swat advised him that tribal conditions till did not permit Kohistan tour for him. Just then with time on his hand, he began on the new edition of Rajtarangini which he intended to revise with illustrations of photographs of ancient sites in Kashmir that he had taken about 50 years back.

A pleasant holiday accorded by fate enabled Stein to complete the work of his youth now with the assistance of a hard working Punjabi Brahamin assistant. All those who had earlier helped him had passed away. It was an amusing experience for Stein to find that he had become as it were a historical record himself. It suggests prudent for the literary historians today, to face this last illustrated edition of Stein’s Rajatarangini. Before his final departure from the dominions of Maharaja Hari Singh, following a route along the Kishan Ganga River Stein wrote in his memoirs, “How grateful I must feel to kindly fate which allowed me to do so much of my work in Kashmir for the last 55 years”. On this observation his old friend Dunsterville equally energetic and adventurous wrote to him, “We all think it is now time for you stop exploring and come home”. Stein agreed with his friend. To him home was where his work took him and that was Kashmir, the green paradise.

But then time lasts for none. The first of this great trio in the edifice of interface between European and Kashmiri scholars, Grierson expired in 1941 followed by Nityanand in 1942 and a year later Stein died in Kabul in 1943. With their end, the glorious chapter of interface also came to an end which had received an unlimited measure of patronage under the great Dogra dynasty of Jammu who for this act have gone in the annals of Indian history among the few Maharajas in India of scholarly disposition, while the mantle of that glory shone pristinely in the crown of Maharaja Ranbir Singh whose foresight and erudite Royal character bears testimony to this interface.

Lecture delivered by S.N. Pandita, Secretary, Nityanand Shastri Kashmir

Research Institute of India International Centre, New Delhi, on April, 18th, 2001.

Kashmir’s Contribution to Indian Aesthetics

By Dr. S.S. Toshkhani

It is really very exciting to think that this small paradisal Valley nestled in the Himalayas has produced a succession of brilliant thinkers who have formulated most of the fundamental concepts of Sanskrit poetics and have given us a whole body of aesthetic thought profound in conception and impressive in volume and value. One cannot but be overwhelmed by the fact that almost all the major schools of Indian aesthetics were founded by Kashmiri theoriticians -the Alankara School by Bhamaha, Riti School by Vamana, Vakrokti School by Kuntaka, Dhvani School by Anandavardhana and Auchitya School by Kshemendra. Though the concept of Rasa was evolved by Bharata, and perhaps by thinkers even before him, it was only the great Abhinavagupta who perfected it as an integrating basic to the aesthetic philosophy of the Indians. Nor was the contribution of those Kashmiri rhetoricians any less important who analysed, interpreted, elaborated and commented upon what the original exponents propounded, thus providing the building blocks on which the Indian aesthetic thought stands today. Profound thinkers like Udbhata, Bhatta Lollata, Shankuka, Bhatta Nayaka, Bhatta Tauta, Rudrata, Ruyyaka, Mahima Bhatta and others. The issues they raised, the solutions they provided, the views they propounded provided grist to the great intellectual debates about the relation of aesthetic object and aesthetic experience which raged throughout India for quite a long time.

To understand the full significance of the art-ideas introduced by the successive Kashmiri thinkers, we shall have to look at them in the overall perspective of the development of Indian aesthetical thought. As we know, it is in the Natya Shastra, the legendary Bharata’s monumental treatise on dramaturgy, that we find the first systematic exposition of Rasa-a concept central to Indian aesthetic thinking. Supposed to have been written between the 2nd century BC and the 2nd century AD, the Natya Shastra provides a deep insight into the psychology of aesthetic experience. It conceives of the drama as the perfect synthesis between all arts and integrates in its form poetic text, histrionics, stage-craft, music, dance, painting and even architecture into an organismic whole, with Rasa as its soul. “There is no art”, claims Bharata, “no science, no craft, no skill that does not fall within the purview of drama”.

Na Tajjnana no tat shilpam

N sa vidya na sa kala

Na sau yogo na tat karma

Natye’smin yanna-drishyate

His well known formulation on Rasa in the Natya Shastra-vibhavnubhava vyabhichari bhava samyogad rasanish-pattih-explains the aesthetic experience in terms of the prime stimuli or the leading characters in a dramatic presentation, their behavioural features and the transient but ancillary emotional reactions they evoke. Scholars have variously interpreted and translated the Sanskrit terms vibhava, anubhava, sanchari bhava and rasa according to their individual perceptions of what these terms mean. Thus, Dr K.C. Pandey translates vibhava as the emotive situation, anubhava as the physical changes consequent upon the rise of an emotion, vyabhichari bhava as transient emotions and rasa as the aesthetic object. Raniero Gnoli prefers to use expressions like “Determinants”, “Consequents” and “Transitory Mental States” for them, leaving rasa untranslated. For the purpose of this paper, however, I have mostly used the equivalents given by Krishna Chaitanya for these key terms for the essential constituents of the aesthetic presentation which enables the aesthetic emotion to be experienced and relished.

We shall have to examine a few more concepts before Bharatas formulation becomes a bit more clear. The vibhavas or the primary stimuli arouse the conative dispositional factors abidingin human nature, which cannot be exactly called instincts but could be described as innate sentiments. In Sanskrit poetics these abiding mental states have been given the name sthayi bhavas. It is the sthayi bhava or basic sentiment awakened by the union of vibhavas, anubhavas and the vyabhichari bhavas that is finally relished as rasa. Put in simpler terms this means that when the prime stimuli or determinants, their consequent behavioural pattern and the transient but ancillary emotional reactions they evoke combine, the basic sentiment is activated and develops into rasa or aesthetic emotion.

The Natya Shastra distinguishes eight abiding mental states that are latent in a man’s psychological organisation. These are Love (rati), Laughter (hasya), Sorrow (shoka), Anger (krodha), Heroism (utsaha), Fear (bhaya), Disgust (jugupsa), and Wonder (vismaya). To these a ninth one, Serenity (shama) was added later. The corresponding nine rasas are: the Erotic (shringara), the Comic (hasya), the Pathetic (karuna), the Furious (raudra), the Heoric (vira), the Terrible (bhayanaka), the Odious (bibhatsa), and the Marvellous (adbhuta).

With this background we can now proceed to understand how ideas which eventually crystallised to form a cogent theory of rasa took off from this point of departure. Going back to Bharatas formulation, the Rasa Sutra, we find that it contained two crucial words that lent themselves to various interpretations, unleashing storms of controversy. These were samyoga and nishpattih. There were other questions also that arose from Bharatas condensed but pregnant statement. Where is Rasa located? Is the aesthetic experience subjective or objective? How is it related to the other emotions or states of consciousness? Every participant in the great debate that ensued took a stand on these on the basis of his own philosophical outlook. Among the earliest to address these questions was Bhatta Lollata who lived in Kashmir in the late 8th century or the early 9th. A contemporary of the great Shaivite thinker Bhatta Kallata, Lollata approached those questions as a Mimansaka or grammarian. His works have unfortunately been lost, but from what we learn from the Abhinava Bharati, Abhinavagupta’s commentary on the Natya Shastra, Lolatta took only the denotational sense of the word nishpattih into consideration and interpreted it as causal origination. Rasa, he said, is an effect of which the vibhavas or the aesthetic object is the direct cause. It resides in the original historical character (Rama etc.) represented on the stage, as well as the impersonating actor. The actor feels himself as the represented historical personage during the duration of the enactment but remembers his real nature through the faculty of anusandhana or recollection (realization, according to Gnoli).

The important question underlying all this discussion is as to how the poetic emotion is transferred from life to art, and Lollata’s answer is that the spectator relishes rasa or the sentiment located in the character portrayed directly and not through emotional induction by the aesthetic process of activating it. Abhinavagupta quickly rejects this view-point which seeks to turn the sentiment or sthayi bhava into an object of perception. Pointing this out, Krishna Chaitanya writes: “Abhinava Gupta’s brilliant mind noticed at once that the literalism of the Mimansakas would annex aesthetics to grammar and bring about as complete an impoverishment in aesthetics as it had brought in philosophy. He saw that Lollata was confusing aesthetic communication with intellectual discourse, the emotive symbol with the denotative sign. Noting that the sthayi bhava, which abides as a potential reality and is raised to the relishable state only through the configuration of stimuli etc. (vibhavadi), Abhinava argues that it cannot be staticised as an object of perception “existing at only one specific conjunction of space and time.” Mammata, an eleventh century Kashmiri aesthete, endorses Abhinavas views by stressing that the object in art is a virtual and not a physical object. It is a virtual object “because the whole phenomenon is processual, the process involving the activity of institution and emotion”. Bhatta Lollata’s theory, it seems, is totally unconcerned with the spectator’s view-point.

Shankuka, another Kashmiri and a younger contemporary of Lollata, approaches the problem of how the spectator relishes rasa or the aesthetic experience from the point of view of a logician, naiyayaka, which he actually was. Rasa, he said, applying syllogistic reasoning, was not produced as an effect as Lollata claimed but could be logically arrived at by the process of inference. Using the analogy of a forest fire he says that just as it can be inferred from the smoke rising from above the top of a cluster of trees, in the same manner the basic mental state can be inferred from the situation presented by the stimuli etc.

Dr K.C. Pandey calls Shankuka’s point of view “psycho-epistemic”. “In actual life”, he points out explaining Shankuka’s view-point, “the mental state of a man is revealed by the visible effects of his feeling i.e. the consequents and their concomitant feelings or the transitory mental state. The successful imitation by the actor of the characters and their experiences is no doubt, Shankuka says, artificial and unreal or illusory but is not realised to be so by the spectators who forget the difference between the actors and the characters and inferentially experience the mental state of the characters themselves”. Shankuka, in fact, uses the analogy of a painted horse, chitraturaga, to bring out the beauty of this imitation (anukarna) and holds that aesthetic experience, which is a peculiar form of inference (anumana), cannot be classified under any known forms of knowledge.

Shankuka’s views, like those of Lollata, have been presented in brief by Abhinavgupta in his famous commentary on Natya Shastra, the Abhinava Bharati, as Shankuka’s works too are lost. The inference and imitation theories of Lollata and Shankuka, which hold the aesthetic presentation to be “the efficient cause (karaka hetu) or the logical cause (jnapak hetu)” respectively of the aesthetic emotion, were later demolished by Abhinava and the exponents of the Dhvani or Suggestion School of poetics. But before we look at what they have to say in the matter, let us try to appreciate the views of Bhatta Nayaka, a great aesthetic thinker who lived in the late 9th century Kashmir and joined the debate to point out the “inwardness of the whole situation”. Here again we have to rely upon the Abhinava Bharati as Bhatta Nayaka’s work the Hridaya Darpana, too is not available. He rejects the idea that rasa or the aesthetic emotion can be affected or inferred, and tries to extend the Sankhya concept of bhoga or enjoyment to the field of aesthetics. Rasa, he posits, is neither atmagata nor paragata nor is it tatastha vedya. That is, it cannot be perceived as located in the spectator or as located in anyone else, whether it be the character portrayed or the actor portraying that character. We can have no perception of rasa at all: “rasah na pratiyate”!.

What Bhatta Nayaka means in other words is that the spectator or the reader does not feel the sorrow or the happiness of the character represented personally as his own because of the aesthetic distance. That is why even a tragic play or a poem does not cause any feeling of pain in him and he is able to “enjoy” or savour its flavour too.Further,he says, ordinary spectator or reader can never identify himself with the extraordinary virtues of such a great hero as Rama. What happens actually is that he enjoys the aesthetic emotion through the bhojaka-bhojya relationship. That is, through the relationship of the enjoyer and the enjoyed. Bhatta Nayaka, thus, stresses the importance of bhavana vyapara or imagination, which, according to him, comes into play as an aspect of aesthetic experience. Poetic experience, he maintains, has another power besides abhidha or the detonational power which enables the sahridaya or the aesthetically sensible person to see the characters presented in an aesthetic creation in a generalised way, “independently of any relationship with his ordinary life or the life of the actor or the hero of the play or poem”, as Gnoli puts it. This special power Bhatta Nayaka calls bhavakatva, the power of generalisation.

The protagonists in their generalised character are perceived to rise above their “specific contextal reference”. Thus Rama’s love for Sita though particular becomes the universalised experience of love in general. Even pain is transfigured into a sort of pleasure which can be savoured aesthetically. This universalisation of the aesthetic object and subject through the power of bhavakatva frees them from all limitations of individuality and is called sadharanikarana. The concept of sadharanikarna or universily of the aesthetic experience is Bhatta Nayaka’s greatest contribution in the field of aesthetic thought.

To explain the relation between the subject and object, Bhatta Nayaka posits another power or function of language-that of bhojakatva or enjoyment. It is by the virtue of this power, according to him, that we relish the experience presented in a poetic creation, not at the practical but at the aesthetic level. All practical considerations fade away due to the predominance of sattva or innate goodness of human nature, a state of psychological poise which makes us repose in our own consciousness. The other two potentialities described in the Sankhya philosophy, rajas, physical dynamism and tamas, insensibility, are rendered ineffective. Thus the bhoga or enjoyment of rasa is a process of delectation very much akin to the state of self-sufficient blissful consciousness which one experiences on realising the Supreme Reality (Brahman). Bhatta Nayaka’s another important contribution, therefore, is that he brings the aesthetic experience at par with mystic experience. By stressing that it is not determined by practical considerations but is a state of being, he makes it more internal and contemplative, bringing the relisher face to face with the ultimate Universal Reality.

In his comment on Bhatta Nayaka’s formulation about universalisation of experience in aesthetics, Abhinavagupta does not seem inclined to dismiss it altogether. In fact, he absorbs his core contentions into his own aesthetic theory and develops them in accordance with his own monistic outlook. He admits that aesthetic enjoyment is similar to the joy that comes from realising one’s identity with Brahman, but he rejects his three-fold classification of the powers of language on the ground that there is no need “to staticise either the generalising function of poetry as a separate power of bhavakatva or the appreciative activity of the reader or spectator as a distinct, isolated power bhojakatva”, as this only leads to unnecessary multiplication of concepts.

We shall refer to Abhinavgupta’s philosophy of aesthetics later. Suffice it to say here that he accepted Bhatta Nayaka’s view that the aesthetic and the mystic experiences spring from the same source and the bliss we derive from them is a state of independence from all extraneous factors--a repose into our own self. But while the state of mystical consciousness is marked by “the complete disappearance of all polarities, the lysis of all dialexis in the dissolving fire of God”, to use the words of R.Gnoli “in aesthetic consciousness the feelings and facts of everyday life remain always present”, even though they are transfigured. The fact put so succinctly by K.Krishnamurthy, is that so far as the idea of rasa is concerned, Abhinavgupta “takes over where Bhatta Nayaka leaves”.

As aesthetic thinking further developed in India, it slowly moved away from the habit of analysing the creative process in terms of dramaturgy alone and looked to pure poetics for further addition to its conceptual armoury till Abhinavgupta synthesized both the traditions. It was Bhamaha, a Kashmiri, who heralded the shift and developed Sanskrit poetics along scientific and independent lines. From all available sources, Bhamaha was the first authority on poetics in the post-Bharat era with an influence that was so strongly pervasive that almost all important theoriticians in the field found it compulsive to refer to him. There is a difference of opinion about the time he flourished, but Anandavardhana has quoted a sentence from him alongside another sentence from Bana, which he considers older, than the latter. Bhamaha’s time can, therefore, be safely placed between the 5th century and the beginning of the 7th.

In his book “Kavyalankara”, on which Udbhata has written a commentary, he emerges as an alankarist who gives foremost place to embellishment in poetry, considering figures of speech essential for the enhancement of its beauty. Bhamaha’s famous comparison of an embellished expression to the beauty of a lady bedecked with ornaments has been often quoted--and misquoted. Bhamaha has provided definitions for a total of thirtyone poetic figures, giving equal importance to verbal figures (shabdalankara) and ideational figures (aerthalankaa). Bhamaha, however, is no mere formalist, his objective is only to lay emphasis on the distinctive quality of poetic expression of which he gives a very significant definition: “shabdarthau sahitam kavyam” (poetry is that in which word and meaning coexist). It is from this definition that the Sanskrit term for literature, sahitya, was derived by Kuntaka. This makes poetic tissue “an organismic union of word and idea”--a concept also emphasised by several European writers. Baudelaire says that “idea and form are two realities in one. And in Flaubert’s view, “Form is the flesh itself of othe idea, as the idea is the soul of life. T.S. Eliot stresses the same idea when he says, “the music of poetry is not something which exists apart from its meaning.

Bhamaha totally ignores Bharata and his concept of rasa when he talks of the beauty of aesthetic expression except when he uses the term in defining mahakavya or the epic poem. He gives it only a minor role to play as rasavada alankara. It is interesting to note Bhamaha’s interpretation of svabhavokti or natural description, even as he accepts vakrokti or deviant expression as an essential element of poetry. He includes svabhavokti as an ideational figure (arthalankara). He seeks to make a distinction not so much between svabhavokti and vakrokti but between vakrokti and varta (news or information). News, whether it is lokavarta or a report of current events, or shastra varta or technical information does not as poetry, he poetry, he points out, but svabhavokti or naturalistic description does, even though it is devoid of ornament, simply because it is charged with poetic power. It is the poet’s imaginative power, pratibha, that is the source from which poetry emanates. Abhinava was particularly fond of this quotation from Bhamaha: “Even a stupid man can learn the Shastras from the teachings of his professor. But poetry is only given to the person who has imaginative genius”. (Translation: J.L. Masson)

Vamana, the author of Kavyalankara Sutravritti and the founder of the Riti School flourished in Kashmir in the 8th century and was the minister of King Jayapida. Though he has expressed his views on various elements of poetic composition, he is best known for having claimed riti or diction to be the soul fo poetry: Ritiratma kavyasya. Before him Bhamaha and Dandi had used the term marga instead of riti to denote diction. Defining riti to denote diction. Defining riti as “vishishta pada rachana” or a special arrangement of words, Vamana seeks to establish that diction has a “higher integrative reallity” than figure or image. Elaborating his conception Vamana relates diction to poetic excellences, or qualities, called gunas. These are ten in number according to Bharata and their presence or absence defines various kinds of diction or style. Vamana refers to three dictions in particular: Vaidarbhi, Panchali and Gaudi. He is very much clear thta these various dictions are only geographical denominations based on characteristics specific to different regions. He considers Vaidarbhi, which is characterised by limpid sweetness, as the best of all. In contrast to it the Gaudi diction of Bengal is marked for its “ornate vigour”. Earlier Bhamaha had related poetic excellences to poetic temper and mood rather than identifying diction with the verbal texture.

Vamana asserts thta the seed of poetry (kavya bija) lies in the poet’s creative genius (pratibha) . Like Bhamana, he treats alankaras as an essential element of poetic beauty. He, however, believes thta all poetic figures are but aspects of metaphorical expression-0-upama prapancha. Making Vamana’s concept clear Krishna Chaitanya writes in his book “Sanskrit Poetics that when Vamana insisted that simile and metaphor were not only genuine poetry but “a latent juxtaposition” (aupamya-garbha), he seems to be thinking of “concretising the theme” and linking it to rasa. The affinity between various juxtaposed images thus belongs to “a deeper plane of aesthetic creativity and experience”.

Kuntaka who lived in the late 10th or early 11th century Kashmir should have chronologically come before Abhinavgupta but we are taking him earlier to consider Abhinavagupta and Anandavardhana together. Founder of Vakrokti School, Kuntaka’s only work Vakroktijivit is found in an incomplete form. In this work, taking the cue from Bhamaha and Dandi, Kuntaka formulated a whole theory of poetic expression based on it. Defining vakrokti as a unique turn of expression--vaidagdhya bhangi bhaniti--Kuntaka derived it from creative poetic action (kavi karma) to which he relates his concept of beauty. He uses vakrokti or deviant expression as a generic term of which poetic figures form an important aspect. The value of the figure, he holds, lies in its being a striking form of expression which is a deviation from the ordinary mode of speech. It produces a peculiar kind of charm which he calls vaichitrya. By contending that the embellished word and sense (alankrita shabdartha) solely constitute vakrokti, and by identifying emabellishment with poetic figure and imagery, Kuntaka almost identifies figurative expression with poetic expression.

Kuntaka is diffident of including svabhavokti or naturalistic expression in vakrokti for the fear that it could lead to “the cart driver” talks finding acceptance in poetry. His difficulty is that in poetic expression cannot be accepted as a figure because it is only the intrinsic nature of the object that should be the ornamented (alankarya) and note the ornament (alankara). In poetic naturalism the beauty is donated by the object itself and and not the poet. And in no way can something not created by the poet by called poetic ornament.

Kashmir Terrorism-The National Response

The militant violence in Jammu and Kashmir, it must be admitted frankly and without any hesitation, is fundamentally communal in character and secessionist in its objective. The Muslim secessionist movements led by All Jammu and Kashmir Plebiscite Front, the Awami Action Committee and the militant youth organisation including the Youth League, were mainly aimed to disengage the state from India and unite it with Pakistan and to ensure the Islamisation of the State. A widespread campaign of disinformation has been in process to provide cover to the real face of Muslim communalism and secessionism in this State. Much of what has actually happened in Kashmir, right from 1947, has either been deliberately concealed or distorted by powers in authority in the Central government as well as the State government for their vested interests. The National Conference which governed the State, by ordinance and decree for three decades, including the most turbulent of the years which followed the Indira-Abdullah Accord in 1975, was avowedly committed to the exclusion of the State from the secular constitutional organisation of India, Muslimisation of its government and society and the obliteration of the Hindus and the other minorities in Kashmir valley and the Muslim majority districts of the Jammu province. The Congress rulers at the Centre acclaimed the Islamicisation of the State as a part of Indian secularism, which the Congress claimed represented parity of power between the special and separate identity of the Indian Muslims and the rest of India.

The war of attrition which is being waged against India in Jammu and Kashmir is a part of the militarization of pan-Islamic fundamentalism and its east-ward expansion in South-Asia. Its main objectives are:

i) imposition of a second partition on India to bring about the unification of Jammu and Kashmir with Pakistan;

ii) destruction of the ethno-religious identity of the Hindus and the other minorities in the State;

iii) disruption of the stability of the north-Indian States to pave the way for the disintegration of the Indian State.

The national response to the tragedy in Kashmir has been self-defeating and determined by commitments to uphold Muslim resurgence, which the Congress leaders believed for a long time, to be a part of the liberal movements among the colonial peoples of Asia and Africa. The Congress failure to assess the impact of the Muslim movement for Pakistan on the Indian liberation struggle was also due to the inability of the Congress leaders to recognise the communal character of the Muslim political movements in India, including that of the National Conference in Jammu and Kashmir.

The Muslims of Jammu and Kashmir always enjoyed the freedom and the approbation of State government as well as the Government of India to promote communalism and separatism. The separate constitution for Jammu and Kashmir envisaged by Article 370 symbolised the Muslim separatism and virtually brought about the enslavement of the Hindus and the other minorities in the State.

The attempts made by the State government and the Congress in the Union government and outside it, the so-called secular and left flanks of the Indian politics and the mercenaries of Muslim communalism in India, to bail out the terrorists and the supporters of Muslim crusade in Kashmir, has led to disastrous consequences. By deliberate design or by error, the Congress government has throughout the last forty-two years of its rule in India, put its wrong foot forward and in effect recognised the rationale of the economic crusade without accepting the Islamic crusade itself. The Congress leadership has always balanced itself between the quest for unity of India and the Muslim opposition to the Indian identity. The Congress, true to its tradition, has always sought to use Muslims to consolidate its own power-structure in India. The Muslim communalism, on the other hand, has obtained its price, a fact clearly proved by what happened in India in 1947, and what is happening in Jammu and Kashmir now.

There will be no peace in Kashmir till the war of attrition, unleashed by the separatist and fundamentalist forces against the Indian civilisation is not brought to an end in Jammu and Kashmir. If the Indian nation seeks peace in a state of war, it will meet the same fate that it did in 1947.

Houses for KPs in Srinagar, Badgam: Rao

No Hindu family has returned to Valley

NEW DELHI, Dec 19: The Union Government does not find fault with the assessment made by the Jammu and Kashmir government vis-a-vis selection of ‘safe’ places in the districts of Srinagar and Badgam for the rehabilitation of the displaced members of the Kashmiri Pandit community.

The Centre, in fact, has approved the ‘Action Plan’ prepared by the J&K government for the rehabilitation of Kashmiri migrants in the Valley.

Doubts, if any, in this regard were set at rest by the Union Minister of State for Home Affairs, Mr Vidyasagar Rao, in the Lok Sabha. He informed the House that the Government of Jammu and Kashmir has prepared an ‘Action Plan’ for the return and rehabilitation of Kashmiri migrants.

Elaborating on it, Mr Vidyasagar Rao pointed out, while responding to a question by MR Ramdas Athawale, that in the first phase of this ‘Action Plan’, it was proposed to rehabilitate as many as 2122 families in 1065 houses in selected clusters located in areas having “sizeable Kashmiri Pandit population” and where security was already provided.

MR Rao said that to begin with, 166 houses forming 15 clusters in the districts of Srinagar and Badgam had been identified. And they, according to him, are considered ‘safe’ for the return of the migrants. He added that the process of contacting the owners of these houses and seeking their consent for return on the basis of a rehabilitation package announced by the J&K government “is in progress”.

At the same time, Minister of State for Home admitted that the government had reports making it clear that no family (of Hindu migrants) had so far agreed to return to the troubled Valley.

Mr Rao also informed the House that nearly 55,666 families had been displaced due to terrorism and unrest in the State of Jammu and Kashmir. Of these, about 4597 Kashmiri Pandit families are living in the migrant camps in Jammu, 238 families in Delhi and 18 families in Chandigarh.

Mr Rao told the Rajya Sabha during question hour on Wednesday that the J&K government’s ‘Action Plan’ envisaged rehabilitation grant per family at the rate of Rs 1.50 lakhs, grant from repair of houses at the rate of Rs 1 lakh for houses intact and Rs 3 lakhs for houses damaged, grant for household goods at the rate of Rs 50,000 and furniture at the rate of Rs 50,000, interest free loan at the rate of Rs 1-2 lakhs per person, compensation for loss of income from agriculture up Rs 1.50 lakhs per family, interest-free loan of Rs 1.50 lakhs per family for investment in agricultural operations and sustenance of Rs 2,000 per month for one year.

In his reply to a question by Mr Janeshwar Mishra, Mr Vidyasagar Rao made it plain that with a view to achieving the objective “expeditiously”, the “Action Plan” will be implemented in phases. The first phase has been estimated to cost about Rs 43.94 crores.

Mr Rao reiterated that the clusters selected by the J&K government in the districts of Srinagar and Badgam were considered ‘safe’ for the return of Kashmiri migrant owners of the houses.

Revenue officials make mockery of Distress Sales Act

KPs property become a free for all affair

JAMMU, May 17: With authorities maintaining no check on encroachments, illegal sale and trespassing by throwing the Distress Sale Act to winds, the migrants property has become a free for all affair in Kashmir valley.

According to sources in many parts of the Kashmir valley the officials of the Revenue department which has been declared as the custodian of this property are in league with the anti-social elements who have forcibly occupied the migrants property. Surprisingly at various places these officials instead of initiating action against the trespassers have made mutations in revenue records by changing their entire nomenclature, the sources added.

Though a large number of such cases have come to light but the authorities till date have failed to take action against the officials responsible for tampering the revenue records, the sources confirmed.

The sources said in Anantnag district alone where the government has identified some localities for the rehabilitation of the displaced people, hundreds of migrants houses and shops have been illegally occupied by the anti-social elements. Emboldened by the militancy and moral support provided by some officials in the Revenue Department hundreds of kanals of the migrants land under paddy fields and orchards is also under the forcible occupation of these elements.

Besides approaching the Deputy Commissioner Anantnag, in various cases the mimgrants have also served the legal notices to the illegal occupants of their property seeking its restoration. But enjoying the official patronage the encroachers are reluctant to vacate the property.

The sources said this has happened despite the repeated assurances given by the Revenue and Rehabilitation Minister, Mr Abdul Qayoom on the floor of State Assembly and outside it.

The Anantnag district is not the only exception but the trespassing has been made in all the six districts of Kashmir valley, the sources said, adding some elements are even seeking the help of the touts at Jammu in grabbing the migrant property.

These touts in open violation of the Distress Sale Act are fixing the deeds between the parties by taking huge commission and after seeking documents withhold the payments.

This has become a scandalous issue and presently hundreds of displaced families are fighting legal wrangles for restoration of their properties after falling in the trap of these touts, the sources maintained.

Giving more details the sources said in many villages of Pulwama district the revenue officials after taking hefty sums from the land grabbers have mutated the records in their favour. Such cases have surfaced from Shopian Batpora and Wasavhall villages of this district.

In Janglat Mandi Anantnag the houses belonging to Keshav Nath and Gopi Nath Rishi have been forcibly occupied by some locals over two years back. Such is the high handedness of these illegal occupants that Gopinath’s House has been converted into a confectionery.

In the same Mohalla five shops belonging to Radha Krishan Rishi have also been occupied by some locals.

In Handoo Mohalla which also falls in the vicinity of the Janglat Mandi number of residential houses of Kashmiri Pandits have been forcibly occupied by land grabbers.

Though these migrants have made a number of representations to the concerned district authorities for restoration of their property but to no avail.

In village Zablipora of tehsil Kulgam in Anantnag district one kanal and 10 marlas of prime land belonging to one Prithvi Nath son of Amarchand has been sold by his relatives without his knowledge some time back. Though Deputy Commissioner Anantnag who under the Distress Sale Act is fully empowered to declared the sale deed nul and void has till date not initiated any action in the matter despite being approached by the land owner.

In Wasavhall village of Shopian tehsil of Pulwama district 19 kanals of agriculture and horticulture land belonging to Dina Nath son of Tika Ram has been illegally occupied by some people from a near by village.

Though the Revenue authorities of the district are ceased of the matter but till date they have made no attempt to restore the land alleged Dina Nath, adding out of 19 kanals six have been occupied by Gh. Hassan Bhat of Baskuchan, 10 by Khalil Rather of Imam Sahib and three by Mohammad Abdullah Bhat also of Baskuchan. While in village Baskuchan agriculture land of Chooni Lal presently a migrant at Jammu has been illegally occupied by Abdul Ahad Bhat of the same village.

The sources said that people have been so emboldened due to inaction of the authorities that in village Mahend of Anantnag district a local chowkidar who is supposed to be the custodian of the villages property has grabbed the orchard of one Kashi Nath Wachhi. The land is presently cultivated by the chowkidar who is enjoying the full patronage of Revenue Department and police.

At Kani Mohalla Rainawari in Srinagar district the residential house belonging to one Sushil Kumar son of Radha Krishan is also under the illegal occupation of some locals while in village Pehru the locals people have constructed a road from the compound of Radha Krishan.

At village Nunar in Gandherbal tehsil of Srinagar district, over 100 kanals of agriculture land belonging to the Kashmiri Pandits has been grabbed by some goons of the surrounding villages.

The matter has even been brought in the notice of the Chief Minister, Dr Farooq Abdullah by the displaced Kashmiri Pandits here but despite his categorical instructions the administration has failed to maintain the status quo of this property.

KPs concern over trespassing over migrant land in Areh village

JAMMU, May 12: Terming the return move an eyewash to hoodwink the Centre, various Kashmiri Pandit organisations today expressed doubts about the State government’s credentials in this regard.

Challenging the sincerity of the government on this issue they alleged that various government departments are adopting a tactical strategy to thwart the move and completely right off the names of the community from the Kashmir valley.

They while making a frontal attack on the State government alleged that it is not interested to take any legal action against the people who have forcibly occupied the migrants houses and encroached their land and other property, as certain government agencies are themselves engaged in this menace.

“We have lost all faith in the State government’s said Mr RK Raina, vice-president, All State Kashmiri Pandit Conference, (ASKPC) who was all sore over the Revenue department for adopting delaying tactics in restoring the migrants property and initiate action against guilty.

He said the maximum houses of displaced Kashmiris have been set ablaze or damaged by militants in the Valley and those which are intact have been encroached forcibly.

He said in the villages where the houses of migrants are intact a tactful policy is being adopted by the officers of the various department that these houses should not remain worth use for the return of the community.

Citing such example he said under a tactical move the State PDD authorities have laid a high-tension line over the existing migrant houses in village Areh of Kulgam tehsil in Anantnag district of South Kashmir recently.

Mr Raina said that entire community has been shocked over this Action of State Power Development Department (PDD) and though the migrants of the village have sent their representations to the concerned authorities but to no avail.

The KP leader said it is shocking that instead of adopting a 10 chains distance from the village link road to the site of the newly constructed power station, the department has adopted a distance of 33 chains over the houses of Kashmiri Pandits for laying the high-tension line.

This gives the credence to government’s inner plans that it is not interested in the return of the displaced community to their homes and hearths, sad Mr RL Bhan, president All India Kashmir Hindu Forum. Had it not been so, the government would have never made tress passing over the Mohalla where houses of displaced Pandits are still existing.

Mr Bhan also lambasted the government for converting seven kanals of land owned by Messers Ashok Raina, TN Raina and Vinod Raina in to a playing field in the same village in open violation of Distress Sale Act.

The KP leaders while demanding the intervention of the Chief Minister in the matter have also sought probe into it as to why the department instead of adopting the shortest distance for laying the line has adopted the longest one.

The KP leaders said that besides informing the Deputy Commissioner Anantnag and AEE PDD Kulgam, the matter has been brought in the notice of Divisional Commissioner Kashmir also.

They also strongly criticised the State government for acquiring the land of Sharika Sanstha at Hari Parbhat in Srinagar Kashmir and warned that in case the land is not restored to the community and encroachments removed the Kashmiri Pandits will be forced to come to streets in protest.

Pushed out?

It seems that common sense is dawning upon some Kashmiri Pandits who had migrated from the strife-torn valley to Jammu and other places early this year. If one is to go by letters appearing in the local Srinagar Urdu press, the migrate Pundits living in refugee camps in Jammu are realising now that their massive fleeing was perhaps unwarranted, and that they had become pawns in the communal games of the BJP-Shiv Sena, liticians. They openly acknowledge their mistakes and are expressing their desire of returning to the Valley.

An interesting exchange between some among the Pundit refugees on the one hand, and Kashmiri Muslims (including representatives of a militant organisation) on the other, in the columns of the Srinagar daily Alsafa News, indicates the changing mood and also reveals the machinations of the former governor Jagmohan who organised the ‘mass emigration’ of the Kashmiri Pundits in February-March this year. One KL Kaul living in the Nagrota Transit Camp in Jammu wrote a letter in the paper (dated September 18) stating that Jagmohan sent a message to the Pundits of the Valley in the first week of February to migrate to safer places since the government had planned to kill about 1,50,000 Kashmiri Muslims in its bid to overcome the uprising. “Pundits were assured”, the letter says, “that once the massacre of the Kashmiri Muslims was completed and the movement was curbed, they would be sent back to the Valley. That is why most of the Pundits left without their belongings”. But things were not all that satisfying for the refugees who came to Jammu. After the initial expressions of sympathy of the local people, now “our community is looked down upon and Kashmiri Pundits are treated as nothing but parasites...Our young men have become vagabonds because they have nothing to do except roaming on the roads. Some of our young men have taken to drugs...” The writer of the letter then appeals to the militants and the Kashmiri Muslims to “forgive my community for the betrayal”, adding: “We are ready to return home and we are just waiting for a call from you...”

The responses from the Kashmiri Muslims to this letter suggest the spirit of communal harmony that still survives in the Valley. Barring one letter--whose author is opposed to the return of the Pundits--almost all the letters that appeared in the newspaper appreciate the desire of the Pundits to make amends and come back. They remind their erstwhile Pundit neighbours that their houses and belongings are still intact and well taken care of, express sympathy for their plight in the Jammu refugee camps, gently rebuke them for having deserted their Muslim brethren at the behest of the BJP and Hindu communal organisations and ask them to condemn the atrocities by the security forces. Of particular significance is a letter signed by several office-bearers of a militant outfit, who remind the Pundits that the militants had earlier given a call declaring Pundits as “brothers and part and parcel of the nation (of Jammu and Kashmir)”. They then add that since the Pundit migrants now realise that the BJP and Shiv Sena are ‘traitors’, they must “first of all stone them to death and then think of returning back to the Valley..”

Meanwhile, 23 Kashmiri Pundit refugees living in Jammu in a letter in the same newspaper (September 22) came out with the disclosure that they were threatened with “dire consequences” by the authorities if they did not obey Jagmohan’s order to leave the Valley early this year. Acknowledging that they “knowingly or unknowingly committed a great blunder by playing our part in communalising the situation and the freedom struggle”, they condemned “the atrocities that are being unleashed on our brothers by the Indian occupation forces” and concluded with the words: “May our dream of living in a free, independent and prosperous country of Jammu and Kashmir be fulfilled very soon”.

It is heartening to find the Kashmiri Pundits and Muslims beginning a heart-to-heart dialogue over the heads of the fundamentalist leaders of their respective communities, who have been trying to keep them apart. Quite predictably, the national press (still playing the game of communalising the Kashmir problem) has blacked out this important dialogue. Since people outside Jammu and Kashmir have no access to alternative sources of information about developments there (like the changing mood of the Pundit refugees described above), the Delhi-based civil liberties group--Committee for Initiative on Kashmir--has decided to bring out a news bulletin called The Kashmir Dossier, collating reports from diverse sources. It is hoped that this effort to provide readers with a comprehensive picture of happenings in Kashmir could initiate a debate among all sections of our people and lead to a consensus towards the solution of the Kashmir imbroglio.

Minorities’ migration from Valley was encouraged

SRINAGAR: If the events of May 21 were bad, what happened earlier in terms of mass exodus of Kashmiri Pandits including officials from the Valley was no better. It was strange case of administration instead of stepping forward to provide protection to minorities encouraged them to migrate by providing transport and other help.

The worst was the case with respect of government staff. As if the move to allow the government staff to leave for Jammu was not bad enough even the men in uniform were allowed to go. It was strange that while the local Muslim employees were being asked to report for duty as they were a part of the essential services an employee from the minority community was being allowed to migrate to Jammu or in some cases even to Delhi and draw his salary there.

Even if one could make a case for civilian employees who were living in different areas and came under tremendous pressure following the threat issued by Hajbe-Mujahid, the militant wing of the Jamait Islami, there could be no justification for allowing mass migration of men and officers in uniform.

It was strange that men in uniform who are to protect the ordinary citizens were allowed to leave Kashmir in mass because they could not protect themselves from militants even though they were armed. An officer on duty at airport told this reporter how come the girls serving in central forces were in services in Srinagar but the local police-woman have been allowed to migrate in the interest of security.

This led to question by different sections who asked how come the security of people serving in Central forces was not so important as compared to locals. The ground situation today is that all police officers or men belonging to the minority community today are out of Valley and few still remaining in senior positions are devising ways to leave at the first opportunity.

This has also led to a strange situation where the banks are not being allowed to function because the minority community employees who formed nearly ninty per cent of the total strength are not prepared to come back and fresh recruitment can not take place till the fate of old employees is settled. The same applies to postal services, telegraph office and offices of Union government including the electronic media.

Even the State government is finding it difficult to run the schools even though it had been announced long ago that all educational institutions will reopen with shifting of offices to Srinagar. The schools in cities are yet to become operational, but the schools in countryside are reporting near normal attendance. The studies are not possible because a large number of teachers belonging to minority have migrated and are not returning.

The same position holds good with respect of technical staff in medical institutions and some allied offices. The result is that there is a growing demand that either the existing employees should come back or new hands be recruited in their places. In either case the solution of the problem will not be easy.

Handling of Kashmiri Pandit migrant problem

First priority should be close all Migrant Camps in Jammu and make arrangements for their return to the Valley wherever they came from before migration. This task could best be achieved by using good offices of the All India Kashmir Samaj whose President is Mr J.N. Koul who is also President of the S.O.S. Its General Secretary is Mr. M.L. Kaul, the Secretary Mr L.C. Kaul.

One senior government officer may be detailed to liaise with the All India Kashmir Samaj. There is quite a number of K.P. migrants in Jammu who are permanent officers of the J&K government drawing their salaries and benefits but are not being utilised for government duties which is a loss of government funds as well as their employment of government.

This could be the first important and realistic approach to the K.P. migrant returning to their homes.

It has to be borne in mind that those K.P. migrants who have since got established and having got good jobs cannot be expected to return to the Valley. It is strongly felt that All India Kashmir Samaj as already suggests with its Samajs in all parts the country could also be very usefully utilised in determining and recommending as to what could be best done in this task. We have to face this problem realistically and most practically. All that has been said above is for migrants after 1988/89.

But those who migrated in 1947 or soon after cannot be expected to return to the Valley. They are spread all over the country and fully established with their housed established with their housed and employment.

All the KP political parties talk politically and not practically. It is rather sad to say not one government officer has ever visited any migrant camp and on the other hand delegations of foreign governments of USA/UK have reached to see the camps. Those migrants who are not in a position to return should be paid compensation for their base and home as well as their houses which are occupied by militants or allotted by them to others.

It is also to be noted that there is already a large number of highly qualified Muslim young men and girls without employment and no one helps them. No doubt there are no potential avenues and openings for them in the Industries which do not exist. This reminds me of my talks with Sher-i-Kashmir Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah in Kolkata on his visit in 1982 or so. He felt with numerical strength of 2 to 3% of KPs, their chances and scope of absorption in government services could not be more than 2 to 3%. He strongly advised the members of the Kashmir Sabha whose president, I happened to be at that time and who met him. He advised KP men should find employment outside State as they could find opportunity to do so. He felt this should earn money and then visit Kashmir to spend their holiday sand there. In fact in the get together in the telco house in Kolkata he offered he could allot 200 to 300 kanals of land at Pakhribal down Ramji temple in Hari Parbhat.

He offered he would donate one lakh per family and the government would help to built the multi storey buildings at the cost of the migrants who had not their houses in the Valley and were settled outside could own such falts which they or their relations and friends visiting Kashmir would be able to use them. He told us he would ask Chief Engineer Mr N.N. Dhar to handle the community project on his return and that he would correspond with me. It was so tragic Sheikh Sahib passed away soon after his return to Srinagar.

Ashoo’s first statement in presence of Magistrate

“I saw my world end before my eyes”

“I ran to nearby government quarters but found no one there. Crestfallen I lay under the outer wall of the quarters to see the flames smouldering. By then everything inside had perished. I started shivering with biting cold and in desperation rushed back home, which was not engulfed by the fire. When I entered inside I found my family members dead. I cried but there was none to respond. I went back to the government quarters, only to find myself alone. The parental love brought me back home again. I laid myself under their feet. Kissed them, hugged them hoping that they would respond.

But alas, they were dead. Besides being shocked to see all my family members lying dead, I was also frightened with the thought that the killers might come back and shoot me dead too. I again went to top storey of the house and hid myself under the heap of cow dung, motionless, for many hours. I wanted to weep but the very thought of killers being around stopped me from doing so.

“It was a long agonizing wait till dawn. With the first ray of the sun becoming visible, I came down and lay under the feet of my parents again. Then the thought came to me what to do alone. I got up, collected my school bag, the dearest of my belongings and put it around my neck. Then I collected the papers regarding ownership of the house and land we own, from my father’s suitcase and also took out the “mangalsutra” which my mother was wearing. I put both these things in my school bag. Then I turned around to see my sister, Poonamba, whom I loved most. The only thing she was having was a small handkerchief in her “pheran” pocket. I took it out too and put in my bag. I wanted to leave but where I didn’t know? It was around 6.30 by my watch which was gifted to me by my sister that I heard some movement from outside the house. I got frightened and peeped from the window to see some people in police uniform looking around. I thought they too were the killers and rushed back to my hide out, heap of cow dung on top floor of the house. After sometime, policemen came upstairs looking for me. I started shivering. Their officer asked me to come out saying we are policemen and have come for your protection. I didn’t believe. They came and caught hold of me. I thought it was the last moment of my life and next I will be shot dead. However, they brought me down, called for a glass of water which I refused to take. Then they took me along and searched each house. I identified the dead bodies except the four of the family from Shopian, who were the guests of our neighbour Moti Lal. I did not know them. By then Army also came and came so many officers to see me. The villagers also returned, started wailing and weeping. An officer asked me about the bag which I was holding. They wanted to take it away despite my imploring. Someone got the idea that I was carrying something dear to me. I then explained to the officer what was inside my bag.

“Another hell broke me in the day when I lit the pyres of my family and witnessed the mass cremation of those who loved me much. I saw my world destroyed in flames. I have lost everything except the house where I was born and which I don’t want to leave. That is the sacred relic for me which I will always keep”.

Kuldeep Kumar on why the Pandits are demanding a homeland

Once the Kashmiri militants opted to give up faith in Kashmiriat in favour of Islamic fundamentalism, it was but natural for the Kashmiri Hindus to follow suit. The recently held World Kashmiri Pandit Conference provided enough evidence that Pakistan has been successful in using the militancy in the Valley to tear as-under the age-old Kashmiri identity which encompassed both the Hindus and the Muslims. Consequently, today the emphasis is not on Kashmiriat but on religious identity. No wonder that the Kashmiri Pandit